PODEMOS AND SPANISH POLITICS TODAY PANEL PSA CONFERENCE, BRIGHTON, 22/3/ 2016 CHAIR: DR LASSE THOMASSEN (QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON)

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1 PODEMOS AND SPANISH POLITICS TODAY PANEL PSA CONFERENCE, BRIGHTON, 22/3/ 2016 CHAIR: DR LASSE THOMASSEN (QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON) PODEMOS: DEMOCRATIC REGENERATION OR REFUTATION OF ORDER? TRANSITION, POLÍTICAL FRONTIER AND DEMOCRACY Javier Franzé Universidad Complutense de Madrid Abstract: Spanish politics has been shaken by the emergence of Podemos. This paper poses the question of whether Podemos represents a democratic regeneration or a refutation of order. It analyzes their discourse in relation to the narrative of the Transition, which legitimizes the Spanish political order, taking the 15M discourse as a historical precedent. While the Transition conceptualized democracy as consensus and avoidance of fratricide, the 15M discourse disassociates Transition and democracy by evaluating the existing order as an oligarchy to democratize. Podemos, in the wake of 15M, was organizing to fight for political power and, in a first stage, was directly confronting the Transition discourse. "The Caste" and the "Regime of '78" impeded democracy, thereby requiring a constitutional process. In a second stage, Podemos disassociates "the caste" from the institutionality of '78 and proposes to "throw out the caste" in order to restore democracy. The demand for constitutional process vanishes, and along with it, the political frontier drawn in the first stage, thus depoliticizing democracy as neutral rule of the game. Keywords: Podemos, 15M, Spanish Transition, Democracy, Political Frontier, Politicization, Depoliticization Introduction This paper poses the question of whether Podemos represents a democratic regeneration or a refutation of order. In Spain, the hegemonic order is what was built by the Transition, originated in the mid nineteen seventies. Therefore my concern is to analyse if the Podemos discourse draws a frontier between the people and the hegemonic order. I will be analysing the Podemos discourse during the period of their foundation in January 2014 to the local level election in May

2 Theoretical and historical assumptions Just few words about some theoretical assumptions on which this paper is based: The political order is a symbolic or discoursive order. Discourse is not about the opposition between facts and words but a problem of meaning construction or interpretation Politics is this contingent and endless fight for meaning. Hegemony, not Truth, is the only way to achieve closure in politics In order to analyze the potential confrontation between Podemos discourse and the hegemonic order of Spanish democracy I will use a formal point of view, not a content one. So, my aim is to show whether the Podemos discourse represents the hegemonic order as an insuperable obstacle for their objectives or a frame in which there is room for their demands. If it s an obstacle, the order should be radically changed, so there is a frontier; if it s a neutral frame, regeneration is needed and there is no frontier at all. The main historical assumption is that the Transition discourse has been the hegemonic narrative of Spanish democracy since the mid 70s. I will present this paper following these steps: first, I wil depict the mid-term and the long-term context; secondly, I will explain the main features of the Transition s discourse and three moments of commotion it suffered in the recent past: 1) Historical Memory Law; 2) Catalonian Statute; 3) 15-M (Spanish indignados ). Finally, I will show the Podemos discourse trajectory in order to answer my research question. Mid and Long-Term Context The long-term context s main feature is the increasing difficulty of Spanish democracy to hold its historical four pillars of legitimacy: Welfare State; State Territorial organization (State of Autonomies); Politics as an issue of political elites; and the tacit agreement to forget the francoist past. The main consequence of this scenario is the corrosion of the social and political contracts between citizens and politicians built during the Transition. The mid-term context could be divided into two parts: the first one, from January 2014 to January 2015 characterized by the emergence and quick rising of the Podemos discourse, and their capacity to undermine the sedimented legitimacy. The second moment goes from January 2015 to May Its main feature is the hegemonic discourse counter-attack, which includes the ability to force Podemos to be on the defensive for the first time. 2

3 As we will see, the Podemos discourse changes from the first moment to the second one. The Transition Discourse: main features The Transition discourse is organized around a core of oppositions derived from the main one, Transition/Present versus Civil War/Past. Transition/Present connotes reconciliation, generosity, consensus, welfare, prosperity, modernization, plurality, future. On the contrary, Civil War/Past connotes discordance, sectarism, poverty, backwardness, standstill, autarchy. Welfare is a key feature of the Transition discourse. It is never explicity denied: even when the Welfare State is reduced, the rulers usually do that on behalf of the future of welfare. In this Transition discourse, the Past is represented as a painful whole. The only thing we have to do with that Past is to avoid repeating it. But at the same time, the Transition discourse shows that Past as a consequence of a supposed fratricidal national personality. Therefore, this Past represents a sort of State of Nature in which we can fall again. As does every political identity, the Transition discourse has an enemy, which is its Other: Civil War/Past, as the opposition of Transition/Present. But the Transition discourse does not recognize the political character of this frontier, but conceives its identity as a moral, rational, human one. The Transition discourse neutralizes and depolitizes its own identity because it denies that it is a decision about contingent values. The Other of the Transition discourse is ETA. ETA summarizes all the opposite values that the Transition represents: violence, terrorism, sectarism, anti- Modernity, authoritarianism. ETA is still living in the past, not specifically in the Civil War, but in the past which represents sectarism and particularism. ETA is represented by the Transition discourse as a private actor: their violence is not political, but criminal. The Transition Discourse: First Inner Commotion The first inner commotion of the Transition discourse is composed of two facts: the debate about the Historical Memory Law ( ) and the debate about the new statute of Catalonia. It s an inner commotion because it comes from the parties which are the pillars of the Transition: Socialism and Conservatism. The Historical Memory Law implies a commotion because it talks about Memory, while the Transition discourse erases Memory from Spanish History. The Catalonian Statute represented a shock for The Transition order because it questions Spanish nationalism while in it Catalonia is defined as a nation. 3

4 The consequence of this first moment of inner commotion is ambiguous. On the one hand it opens cracks on the equivalence between democracy and Transition, due to the emergency of demands which do not have a place in the Spanish democracy. But on the another hand, the discourse which legitimates both projects (Historical Memory Law and Catalonian Statute) is the Transition discourse. In effect, the Socialist Party presents Historical Memory Law as a private individual right, not as a public policy or a State decision. The Catalonian Statute is also presented by the Socialist Party as a ratification of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, as a continuation of Transition policy. Therefore, the Transition discourse is still the only way to legitimate every political decision. The Transition Discourse: Second External Commotion The second commotion is external because it comes from outside the political system and traditional parties (PSOE and PP). The two main actors are 15-M Movement and Podemos. Furthermore, new actors are not the tradicional antiparliamentary actors, but completely new, with new ways and language. The narrative of these actors is a novelty in that it is not based on the assumptions of the hegemonic meaning, and its goal is neither protest nor propose. The main goal is expressive, a way to say to the political, economic and even cultural elites we are here, we are the people and you do not represent us. The Discourse of 15-M The main features of the 15-M discourse are the following: It groups dissimilar demands about work, housing, participation, corruption, transparency, gender issues, electoral system, State-market relationship, ecology, etc. Those demands are caused by the same political problem: the opposition between a vast majority and a very small minority which has the power. This opposition is named in the 15-M discourse as following: the people, common people against the system, politicians and bankers. The motto which summarizes the 15M discourse is they call this democracy but it is not and they do not represent us Key problems, main concerns and the enemies of the Transition discourse have no place in the 15M discourse: issues such as Historical Memory, Basque, Catalonian and Spanish nationalisms, Monarchy and Republic do not appear in this narrative. Therefore as we have said above it is a novelty. 4

5 The 15M discourse disregards perceptual-cognitive frames of the Transition discourse; it represents a new agenda, style and course of action The 15M discourse draws an explicit frontier between us and them in terms of a vast majority and a very small minority The dichotomy Past/Civil War-Present/Transition simply dissapears, and with it a key concept of the Transition discourse: democracy as a mere avoidance of civil war Therefore, the 15M discourse dissasociates democracy from the Transition. In order to be a genuine democratic actor not only is it not necessary to be part of the Transition spirit, but it is essential to break away from Transition Democracy is assessed not as a means, like in the Transition discourse, but as an end in itself. It represents a people empowerment and popular sovereignty, without taking into account only its capacity to generate material welfare The 15M discourse repoliticises what the Transition discourse depoliticizes: the current Spanish political comunnity physiognomy. Now, Transition democracy is not the only possible order, but the result of an oligarchical rule Nevertheless the 15M discourse depoliticises its own character while it presents itself as a common sense discourse The 15M discourse represents a potential rupture with hegemonic order because its demands are incompatible with that order, therefore its fulfillment requires building a new order, new actors (a majority ruling instead of a minority) and a new legitimacy, based on the democracy in itself, not on its material results As long as the 15M movement is not organized as a political force in order to dispute the hegemony, we can not caracterize it as a counter-hegemonic movement, but as a milestone in the path to counterhegemonic order The Podemos discourse As we have said, the Podemos discourse has two moments. In the first moment, this discourse represents a challenge of the hegemonic order; in the second moment, it becomes a regeneration of democracy. The inflection point is around January

6 First Moment The first moment of the Podemos discourse is characterized by a confrontation with the Transition discourse. Against the dichotomy of the Transition Present/Transition versus Past/Civil War, the Podemos discourse opposes a new one: New/Down/Democracy versus Old/Up/Oligarchy. The Podemos discourse dissasociates democracy from Transition. Democracy is kidnapped by the Regime of In the Podemos electoral platform to the European election of May 2014 democracy is represented as something that is necessary to build. Therefore, being kidnapped is equal to non-existence. The Transition is the result of an oligarchical politics; the consequence of a pact between old francoist politicians and the new democratic politicians in order to distribute the political system in terms of centre-left and centre-right. The main goal of this pact is to avoid changing the basis of the social and political order. The two-party system allows the economic elites to rule and corruption is the fuel of that system. The order is more than a political system: it is a Regime ruled by a caste. The new dichotomy that Podemos draws looks to redisign the symbolic universe of the Transition discourse, shared by the left-wing and the right-wing. The key problem it is not only the elites behavior, but the institutional design that enables and produces that behavior. Therefore, institutional design and the elites behavior are connected as a cause and effect relationship. Coherently, the key proposal of this first moment is to open a Constituent Process in order to break the padlock of the Constitution of 1978 and give the opportunity to discuss everything with everyone. Podemos asks for a similar process in the European Union. In conclusion, the first moment of the Podemos discourse is characterized by the following features: It draws an explicit frontier between us (The People) and them (Caste). The solution that Podemos proposes for that is the institutional transformation of the Regimen of 1978, in order to end the rule of the oligarchy. The Podemos discourse repolitizes what the Transition discourse depolitizes: the current political identities in Spain, the history of the spanish political order, the crisis from 2008 and finally the administration of that crisis Podemos partially depolitizes its own identity presenting its discourse full of common sense proposals and claiming the major relevance of the topbottom dichotomy instead of the left-right one in order to classify political identities. Podemos claims to belong to the bottom, not to the left. Doing 6

7 that, the Podemos discourse overlapps the meaning of the existing left-right in the Spanish political system and the general and historical meaning of the leftright distinction since Modernity. In truth, it is impossible to understand the bottom without the left in its general meaning, not as the left in the Spanish political system (in which the left is indistinguishable from the right due to the centrism ): Podemos affirms the bottom as a democracy, as an expression of the popular sovereignity, against the centrist meaning, which affirms democracy as a competence between technocratic elites. In this first moment, Podemos represents a refutation of the order because the fulfillment of its demands is incompatible with the existing order Unlike the 15M Movement, it is possible to affirm that the Podemos discourse is counter-hegemonic, because it represents not only a negative moment of criticism but a positive one of organization and struggle for political power with the explicit mission of not being just a testimonial candidacy or actor Second Moment In the second moment, the Podemos discourse is still based on the opposition New/Bottom/Democracy versus Old/Top/Oligarchy, but it tends to disconnect Caste from the Regime of Also, and coherently, it tends to leave in the second place the demand of Constituent Process as a general solution. In the Us versus Them opposition, Them now represents a behavior, not a consequence of an institutional structure. Caste and institutions / Regime of 1978 are disconnected. Them represents an elite which takes advantage of an institutional order that should be recuperated by the people. This change implies that institutions are rather neutral, that their political meaning depends on the use. On the contrary, in the first moment the institutional design appeared as radically favourable to the elites (and because of that they could be named The Caste ), the elites were in contradiction with the popular sovereignity and they tended to kidnap the democracy. The main Podemos document of this second moment is their Electoral Platform to the local level election in May In it there is an unknown recognition of the institutional design of 1978: We have institutions we contemplate proudly. We have travelled a long way. We have the pieces, but it is necessary to put them in order, to fit and balance them. We have high quality materials, but they have fallen in the hands of clumsy governments, miopic and wasteful 1. Also, in 1 El Programa del Cambio. Elecciones autonómicas de 2015, p. 11: 7

8 the Electoral Platform they affirm the necessity of recuperating the institutions for democracy. As a logic consequence of the shift in the Podemos discourse, the demand of Constituent Process dissapears. It is no longer a condition for transformations of the Regime of 1978, because the Podemos discourse is no longer looking for the end of the Regime of The demand of Constituent Process is not present in the Electoral Platform to the local level election in May Another consquence is the aspiration to recuperate the agreement of 1978, misappropriated and broken by the behavior of the caste. While the problem is no longer the order of 1978 in itself but the behaviour of the elites, the democracy appears in the Electoral Platform of 2015 not as something that is needed to construct, but as a something that is needed to recuperate. Finally, the chronology of the crisis is modified. The begining of the crisis is no longer 1978, but Therefore, the crisis appears not as a consequence of the institutional design of 1978, but as a result of the neoliberal policy of the two-party system since Another important change of the Podemos discourse in this second moment is the revindication of the socialdemocracy through a recognition of its historical role during the Second Postwar and in Spain during the Transition. Even the socialdemocracy is revindicated as the identity of the Electoral Platform of Podemos. This is important not as a content of the Platform, but as a formal criterion, because the consensus of the Transition was made by three political forces and identities: conservatism, basque and catalonian nationalisms and socialdemocracy. The aspiration to fill the vacant place of the socialdemocracy is partially contradictory with the aim to rebut the tabletop of the Transition discourse. Socialdemocracy, as one of the political identities which is part of the Transition order is no longer an obtacle but a revindicated place for the Podemos discourse. The general conclusion of this second moment is the following. The vanishing of the term Regime of 1978, the reivindication of the socialdemocracy, the disconnection of the behavior of the caste from the institutional design of 1978, the change of the cronology of the crisis and the dissapearence of the demand of a Constituent Process leads to the loss of the central importance of the confrontation against the Transition discourse. The main political problem in the Podemos discourse is now that the elites have been above the institutions and the law of 1978, not the institutional regime of 1978 in itself. Therefore, the frontier drawn in the first moment of the Podemos discourse between the people and the hegemonic order vanishes. In effect, there is no possible frontier between the people and the order if the main problem is the behavior of the elite disconnected from the institutional design of The behavior does not imply neither that the demands are incompatible with the order nor that the political project of Podemos can t coexist with the hegemonic order of Transition, but only the necessity to replace the elite in order to rescue 8

9 the institutional design they abused. Conceived like that, elite can t be an institutionalized Other, but an de-institutionalized Other ; in a non Other, in short. Finally, for the first time in the Podemos discourse, they use in their Electoral Platform the signifier modern referring to the aim to build a modern country ; modern may be the most representative signifier of the Transition discourse, the myth which is able to legitimate every action or objective. Conclusion Our question was if the Podemos represents a democratic regeneration or a refutation of order. The Podemos discourse in their first moment represents the existent hegemonic order as an insuperable obstacle, but in the second moment that order appears as a fertile ground for achieving the popular and democratic demands. This shift from the necessity of replacing the institutional design in order to build the democracy to the necessity of replacing the caste in order to realease the democratic potential of the insitutional design of 1978, implies a new depolitization although on another level as a result of the previous repolitization built by the Podemos discourse. In effect, democracy no longer appears avoiding the fratricide war, but as a neutral rule of the game, some good pieces that we need to fit. That neutralization on another level allows us to think that the Podemos discourse has an effect on democratic regneration more than a refutation of order. The Podemos discourse gives place to new democratic demands but under the condition of depolitizacing their own identity and presentig democracy as a neutral rules of the game that does not determine either the physiognomy of actors or the political struggle or the demands. Democracy remains neutralized when the Podemos discourse politizes only the political behavior of the caste as the key political problem. That movement implies an opening of the politics taking into account its existence since the Transition under pressure of the political emerging demands and actors from outside of the institutional design and the re-closure and re-stabilisation of politics, once those demands are incorporated, thanks to a new depolitization, now presenting democracy as an order able to disregard all political frontiers and therefore making the rupture of the new with the old superfluos, because this frame is able to embrace without being affected a process of change of hegemony. 9

BOOK REVIEWS. Raffaella Fittipaldi University of Florence and University of Turin

BOOK REVIEWS. Raffaella Fittipaldi University of Florence and University of Turin PArtecipazione e COnflitto * The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco ISSN: 1972-7623 (print version) ISSN: 2035-6609 (electronic version) PACO, Issue 9(3)